Times know about the drones, i guess. [laughter] i think we can say that. No, i think, i think journalists have done their work in developing a lot of information about what our National Security apparatus thinks, how its motivated and how its acting. I think thats true. But what we, but we have not had a fundamental policy discussion in the country that we need to have. And i think and i think we can define that along many different lines. But for me the key issue is, um, if we look at whats going on in pakistan, for instance, you know, we have the cia engaged on a traditional, in a traditional theater of war in what historically have been viewed as military tactics over a sustained period of many years involving hundreds of strikes with clear military objectives. And is that a correct use of an Intelligence Service . I think thats a very fundamental question, and weve got the same issue with respect to yeaman, i think yemen, i think, potentially other places. So this is the cia growing outside of any reasonable interpretation of its original mandate from the time of its birth. Thats a huge issue. The cia has been astonishingly successful in keeping that caged in and not discussed. So theres a lot to be talked about. I think, also, the leak process itself has led to a bit of a distortion of the reporting. I mean, i think this is an area where your public editor did a very, very good job of reviewing the situation. That is, you know, many publications in the u. S. Are really focused on our National Security apparatus and what its doing, what its thinking, how it evaluates things. And thats what gets this tremendous effort put into ferreting that information out and reporting it. Well, a lot more to the story thats not being reported. Whats actually going on on the grounds in pakistan are the claims that they make about efficacy of the strikes and the number of civilians dead correct claims . Whether the broader consequences of this effort for u. S. Relations with pakistan. For instance, if at the end of the day we wind up killing several hundred terrorists and wouldbe terrorists with minor Collateral Damage but we turn pakistan once defined as one of our closest nonnato allies into an irreconcilable enemy with nuclear weapons, thats not a success. David, i dont know where you come out on the drone thing, but let me just pose this. It seems to me as a person on, you know, litigating this issue that the government wants to have it both ways. They want to talk over and over again about the drone strikes but never tell us what they dont want us to know. And that doesnt the leak system fail . And you deny pain sociologically, but isnt that the failure that the cards are all held by the government . Yeah. This goes to what i was trying to get at earlier about the necessary constructive ambiguity that the government wants in this area. If what you said is right, that the government, the government wants to have it both ways and the same people who are trying to deny these foia suits are the ones in some concerted way leaking, then we have a real basis for cynicism. However, since leaks are not this monolithic phenomenon, we dont really know whos saying what, theres a lot of quasiauthorized talking, its hard to pin down that charge on the white house since its hard to say what they might have disclosed through leaks versus anyone else but why should we divide the government like that . Isnt it one government . Yeah. So i think this is, um, kind of the dark side of what marty was in a sense celebrating, i think, in the last panel which is that most principled justification for playing the game of, um, talking in an unattributed, you know, leaky way about the Drone Program while asserting the defense to these foia suits is something about the special diplomatic currency of nonofficial acknowledgment, that puts it in the best light. The most negative light is, um, that that kind of just allows the government to get all the upside without allowing domestic watchdog groups like the aclu to leverage the disclosure for details that matter to a lot of people about procedures, legal standards, Collateral Damage and the like. Um, i think somewhat complicating the question of, you know, the normative question of whether this is, um, good or bad or just or not is, um, the counterfactual. You know, in a world in which there wasnt this kind of quasiauthorized or authorized talking about droneses, do we see, you know its not necessarily a world of more frontal, official acknowledgment in which were having a more pristine, you know, rich, democratic conversation about drones with more integrity. It might be a world in which theres no disclosure or far less disclosure about drones at all. So its, i find, very vexed and difficult these kind of highlevel, normative questions about is this good or bad for, um, for democracy, the system we have, um, and i dont i have no sharp answers, you know . But i think there are, um, i would agree with the proposition theres a real cost. Let me say one other quick thing on whether its good or bad. You also, you mentioned earlier the common, um, critique that who is scott shane in the New York Times to publish these secrets, um, and this is an affront on democracy. You know, we have elected leaders,. Yet the and yet the New York Times or the individual leaker is talking about drones. I think what i was saying earlier provides a partial response which is that that rests on a very thin, implausible conception of democracy in the sense that our elected leaders have effectively blessed talking to scott shane about these things, um, in their practices if not in the laws they technically, they put on paper. No senior Government Official has ever been prosecuted for leaking. Theres been hardly theres been almost zero disciplinary action. There hasnt been much energy or resources invested in finding leakers, much less going after them. In light of that longstanding background, its not crazy to think that the government has in some practical sense, um, actually has kind of blessed the New York Times to play a certain role within bounds. Yeah. I mean, i guess the hard part i have is i agree with you at the sociological level, but theres no sociological defense for drake. Those guys cant [inaudible] right. They cant come in and say, well, the big shots are doing it, and can its good for society, but, you know, thats not a defense. This is why youre legally vulnerable. But i will say the jury plays some role here at least in espionage act prosecutions in channeling i gave the case for why at least in technical terms its very hard to see why every classified information leak isnt prosecutable. One answer might be that the jury notwithstanding what the laws say or the instructions they get from judges has, um, developed some kind of sense of hypocrisy, sense of fairness and that the jury would be amenable to arguments in the experience by you allowing this week to occur, how can you go after me, i think thats sociological. But it gets filtered into the legal system as a jury as a real check here. And it concerns many of us on my side of the aisle that then the Southern District of new york decided to prosecute the guy thats advocating jury nullification to make sure that doesnt happen. But, scott, back to you. Public editor right, its really our fault that this stuff is not out there . Your fault, not mine. [laughter] its not his fault. Well, um, i mean, actually, yeah. For those of you who did not see a column on sunday by our new public editor, margaret sullivan, she, you know, sort of, um, gently chided the New York Times for not doing enough coverage of drones, of targeted killing, quoted some folks, um, critically. You know, i guess the one thing that i would say was to scott is that, um, hes absolutely right that most of our coverage has, you know, has certainly been weighted towards, you know, whao do what do the people in washington say about drone strikes, how do they make these decisions as opposed to the poor folks in villages in yemen and pakistan who see them coming down on their neighbors or on themselves . But that is not really related to thats our, um, thats the inherent difficulty of doing that reporting. Its nothing to do with the fact that its classified. You know, the classification certainly doesnt keep us from going to pakistan and Walking Around the tribal areas and asking a lot of questions. What does keep us from doing that is that the tribal areas are a very hazardous place between the, um, the militants and the isi, the pakistani intelligence. Very difficult to travel around. And if you do, you know, having done it, if you do talk to people who try to do it, some pakistani journalists try to do it, they often find that the people theyre talking to, they are uncertain as to their reliability as eyewitnesses because they are sometimes intimidated by the militants, sometimes theyre sympathetic to the militants, sometimes theyre intimidated by the isi, sometimes theyre being paid by the isi. So even if you do that reporting, t very difficult. But i would certainly agree that we ought to do more of that. If i could just respond quickly, i dont agree with your conclusion that secrecy doesnt help frame it. I mean, i think secrecy has played the key role in framing the issue in a very narrow way and avoiding the broader policy discussion. And i think without that broader policy discussion, theres also less interest in seeing the facts developed and the reporting developed. But i would give you a little bit of credit because i think the public editor was right to say theres too much missing from the reporting. Still, if you compare the New York Times with other u. S. Publications and broadcasters, New York Times has actually offered more reporting out of pakistan and about Pakistani Affairs than most of its competitors. But its still a huge issue thats being missed. Scott, scott shane, isnt Bradley Manning, isnt Bradley Manning and wikileaks different . I mean, dont you feel a little uncomfortable with what is an indiscriminate, wholesale providing of document as opposed to the guy who, you know, hes a draketype situation. Drake sees something he doesnt like, he cant get remedy within the system, so hes accused of and i guess he actually does he makes that public so the public can do something about it. Thats not Bradley Manning. Shouldnt we feel differently about Bradley Manning they with do about the Thomas Drakes of the world . Well, there are differences, and you just articulated them. But i think it was interesting that earlier i think it was Ken Wainstein who said, who made this distinction which seemed to be, um, you know, on behalf of the New York Times. Because there is a continuing grand jury investigation of wikileaks and presumably Julian Assange and the other folks who have worked for wikileaks if they actually brought a successful prosecution, itd be the first time, correct me if im wrong, that a nongovernment employee would be prosecuted successfully for disseminating classified information. So even though there is a distinction between the tom drakes and the Bradley Mannings, im very uncomfortable with the idea that there is, um, a very clear cut distinction for two reasons. One is, um, i feel somewhat awkward say, oh, yeah, that manning, he was completely irresponsible, and that assange, you know, he deserves what he gets when i spent months writing stories based on the documents that they, in effect, stole and provided to the New York Times. [laughter] so that would be somewhat twofaced of me and, i think, of the New York Times to take that position. But the other thing is i dont really see i see a difference in scale, maybe in motive and so on, but i dont really see how we are, um, you know, i, you know, one could say that i spend a considerable amount of my time trying to find out classified information and make it public. And so if Julian Assanges go off to the hue cow for that crime, you know, im going to be looking over my shoulder. And so, you know, im, im hoping that that doesnt happen. Bill keller once asked me whether the New York Times would sign onto an amicus brief on behalf of Julian Assange. He chose to do that while we were making a presentation to the board of directors of the New York Times company. I sort of changed the subject, which im going to do right now. [laughter] david, do you buy into the premise of my question that if Bradley Manning is a different not only in quantity, but in quality . Yeah, i definitely do. I mean, i think government just looked at from the perspective of the government and the executive branch can tolerate some amount of whether misguided or noble, discreet revelation by individual employees of perceived abuses or problems on the order of thomas drake, um, it cant tolerate as a matter of just kind of internal governance, um, someone who has a much more subversive aim of, um, you know, condemning the whole system. Bradley manning wasnt at least by the time he was finished wasnt trying to expose a particular concern he had or, um, you know, bring to light some particular perceived flaw. He was, basically, he basically found the u. S. Government, i think, to be an awful force in the world and was trying to, so had a much more fundamentally subversive aim. I think, um, this puts a lot of pressure on the model i was describing on how leaks have been sort of selfregulated within government for years because hes so far beyond the pale actually on two levels. One, kind of invim thattiveness of what he leaked and the internal norms that are supposed to constrain the environmental laws and, two, he is in no sense of the term either legal or everyday use authorized to do any of this. Hes at a very low level. Hes a rogue actor in kind of every respect. So, um, the case is so extreme that i actually kind of wonder if it, um, misleads as a guide to how the government deals with leaking generally. However, i do think it raises these big issues Going Forward as to whether its kicked us into a new and more troubling legal paradigm. And before we go to audience questions just quickly, prosecution of Bradley Manning excuse me, of Julian Assange, good thing or bad thing for the system . Is that to me . Yeah. Im going to ask everybody. Oh. I incline strongly against it. I dont know that i have a very, you know, well thought out answer, but, um, i tend to side with, you know, people [inaudible] has a big piece, well known scholar in this field about the functional indistinguish about of wikileaks from the New York Times. And i tend to think theres a lot to that. And i, um, maybe ill just leave it at that. I think, basically, scott called it a functional system weve groped our way towards where leakers are much more vulnerable than the press. I think that probably strikes a decent balance at least in the absence of a conspiracy which doesnt seem to be, you know, doesnt seem to be proven in assanges case. Um, i think the New York Times is very awkwardly situated visavis wikileaks. A bad ruling for wikileaks is maybe ominous for the New York Times. In that sense youre natural allies. On the other hand, theres, um, a concern to distance yourself from wikileaks to show the kind of ethic of responsibility that has in part been seen to justify the legal latitude that the New York Times has operated with for so many years. So i understand i think its a very tough case for you guys. I think, um, anyways, i think its always going to come back because of the way things are playing out. But i might guess informed by no inside info that the u. S. Government would not have prosecuted assange given the backlash it would have caused. Scott horton, likely prosecution and how bad would it be in first of all, Bradley Manning, i agree completely with your analysis of Bradley Manning. He is not a whistleblower by any stretch of the imagination either under the institute, nor under the common use of that term. And moreover, as a member of the military whos engaged in this, i think there has to be disciplinary action, there has to be a courtmartial. Strikes me that thats unavoidable. The big mistake in that case is the demonization and the harsh treatment which i think were just, um, what did p. J. Crowley say, knuckle headed . Yeah, i think thats exactly what they were, just dumb. But Julian Assange is a really different case, and i, i think im not sure exactly what the theory is that would be used here. It seems to me the theory would wind up being something of a stretch under current law in any event. But it just strikes me generally that this would be a Public Relations disaster for the United States to do. Not a smart thing. Youre going to turn him into a martyr, a martyr in the eyes of people all around the world, that doesnt advantage the United States. And i think the u. S. Has already made a number of mistakes in this case with overkill and overaggressive accusations against him, which hes used very much to his benefit. I mean, if you looked at the asylum decision that was given by the ecuadoran foreign minister consisted o after long recitation of things that were said by Public Affairs spokesmen, by department of defense, by american diplomats, American Pub